Sawbones
by mellow all through
Summary: "Doctor McCoy had always suspected you couldn't really trust the transporters. And now that Kirk, Uhura, Scotty, and himself were being shoved along one of the ship's endless corridors and pushed into the brig, he was pretty damn sure about that." Mirror, Mirror - and doctor McCoy's revenge. T for angst and other things. I do not own the characters, nor the script lines I used.
1. Chapter 1

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Doctor McCoy had always suspected you couldn't really trust the transporters. And now that Kirk, Uhura, Scotty, and himself were being shoved along one of the ship's endless corridors and pushed into the brig, he was pretty damn sure about that.

The force field locked all four of them up, like beasts in a cage. The clean-shaved Vulcan was standing alert on the other side, hands clasped behind his back, his puzzlement showing only in the unmistakable eyebrow twitch. The intruders paced around the brig, flailed and bellowed at the Vulcan, demanding what the hell was going on – everyone but doctor McCoy. He just stood with his back in the corner, arms crossed, and watched the show. From the very moment he saw the Imperial insignia were missing, and that it was definitely cleaner and less smelly up here, he knew what it was all about.

He could get his twisted mind to work, when he really wanted to.

"Apparently, some kind of transposition has taken place," the Vulcan said, robotically, as usual, "I find it – extremely interesting."

He turned his back to the field and began his way off.

"Spock!" the Captain rushed forward, his fists pressed against the field, "What is it that will buy you? Power?"

The Vulcan stopped but never turned his head.

"Fascinating," he said, bemusedly, and exited the brig.

Kirk went on yelling for a while how he could get Spock power, and credits, and personal command, but there was no one to listen except for a couple of redshirts on-guard. He kicked at the walls a couple of times, and then went into an angry huddle with Scotty and Uhura. They broke off into exasperated whispers, trying to put their finger on what the smooth-faced Vulcan just said.

Doctor McCoy crouched and then slouched on the floor in his corner while the three were racking their brains. No one ever spoke to him unless absolutely necessary – they knew what he could be like when he had one of his fits, and no one wanted the trouble. Not that it bothered him much, quite on the contrary. Left alone, he could just sit there and think quietly to himself.

They beamed up at the wrong universe, you could bet your teeth on that. He'd heard vaguely about a universe on the other side of the mirror, but never gave it a second thought. Another technophile fairytale to boggle the minds of the homegrown philosophers – and now, turned out, it was real. With a mirrored I.S.S. Enterprise or whatever they called her, here. With mirrored people, who were technically, biologically the same as on the other side, and yet.

Take the Vulcan, for instance. He looked like Spock and talked like Spock alright, but without his Van Dyke beard, without the Imperial pins and sash and stuff, he seemed almost senilely harmless. Soft, lamb-like, perfectly innocuous.

Absently, doctor McCoy wiped at a bubble of saliva at the corner of his mouth as he mused at the thought. He toyed with the images of his Spock and that other one, adding and subtracting details like the clothing, the facial hair, the metallic tinge to the voice, the cold steel in the eyes. Both Spocks floated and danced just on the brink of his diluted perception as he tried to wrap his mind around it. That other one, the scraped-faced, was obviously the same, and so absurdly different at the same time – but how different? And, which was more troubling, exactly how was he the same?

"Sawbones! You alive down there or what?"

Doctor McCoy raised his head from the reverie. All three were looking at him expectantly.

"Ya, guess so. Why?"

"What do you think of all this?" Kirk demanded.

The doctor eyed the Captain, his expression nondescript.

"I don't."

"You don't – what?"

Doctor McCoy almost rolled his eyes.

"I don't, _sir_."

Alone, Spock entered the transporter room, opened the lid to expose the circuitry, and stopped. Worry. The all-too-human, insecure emotion was all but fogging his perfectly organized consciousness into irrationality. He took a deep breath, accepted the emotion and dismissed it as irrelevant. At times like this, feelings brought little more than a mental spasm that blocked the smooth workflow of the cortex – which he needed in perfect function just now. He studied the circuits and plunged into calculations and technical intricacies to reason his way out. His Captain, his engineer, his communications officer, and his doctor had to be retrieved from wherever it was that these savages belonged.

As he filled the blanks in the formulae, one after another, all spread out on a metaphysical blackboard before his inner eye, the doors to the transporter room slid open. Doctor M'Benga and nurse Chapel went in, looking concerned. The ion storm that transposed the landing party during the transportation caused some turbulence that shook the ship. There were several injuries that the medical team could safely deal with, but now that both the doctor and the nurse were here, hesitant, it didn't look as promising all of a sudden.

"It's Coupet, petty officer, second class," the doctor started, contritely, "Blunt aortic injury, hemorrhage from other organs. We keep her on full life support, but she's fading rapidly. We need a thoracotomy."

Spock knew they wouldn't have come to him if they could manage. An incision into an unstable patient's chest to reach the heart and patch up the aorta was a task that needed a surgeon. Or rather, the surgeon.

"You do realize that doctor McCoy is currently unavailable, do you not?"

"But when?"

"I cannot accurately forecast this, as yet."

"We can't just stand there and watch her die, either," the nurse said, "We need him here, now."

Spock could relate to this, although he did not see the point in restating the obvious. He had already tasked the engineering team and was personally doing the possible and impossible, but the fact was there – doctor McCoy was on the other side of reality. When, or whether at all, he could be brought back, was unknown.

Time was the luxury they didn't have. Spock, doctor M'Benga and the nurse looked at each other. Technically, there was –

"No, no way," the doctor said, aghast.

Spock observed the medics, thoughts twirling in his brain. The mirror-McCoy was there, and, by the logic of the mirror, he possessed the knowledge and talent equal to the original's. And yet, following the same logic, something must be twisted to the point of unrecognizability in this caricature version of the McCoy he knew. Something, but what exactly? The uncertainty made the mirrored doctor and the whole enterprise all the more unpredictable, which was, shamefully enough, quite irritating.

"From your presence here and not at the sickbay, I conclude that you are incapable of performing the operation yourself, doctor M'Benga," Spock stated.

"I don't dare," the doctor shook his head, radiating helplessness, "Too little experience at pleural surgery, and – "

"And doctor McCoy is known to have successfully performed several such operations, is it correct?"

"Yes, but this one's a brute! Go figure what's in his head – for all we know, he may just as well kill her."

But the officer's chances for longevity were faint all the same. And prolongating her biological functioning with artificial life support would turn her into a vegetable sooner than later. Since the original McCoy was out of immediate reach, the only logical solution to increase Coupet's chances for life was to let the mirror-doctor operate. Provided that he would oblige, of course. Doctor M'Benga and the nurse had to agree, although they hated the very thought.

Spock closed the panel lid and set off to follow the medics to the brig. Should that other McCoy comply, the operation had to go under surveillance – his personal surveillance, surely. He did not want the savage to run about the ship if he should break free. On their way, Spock went on with his calculations, empirically, but with his usual precision. All anticipations that tried to float to the surface of his attention from the depth of his being were acknowledged, labeled, and dismissed as inconsequent.


	2. Chapter 2

When the captives were given trays with hot soup from the food replicator, no one touched anything. They all waited until doctor McCoy lifted the plate to his lips, indifferently, took a gulp of whatever it was they'd shoved in front of him, and sat there for a while, looking unharmed. As the others ate, he pushed the tray away and crawled back into his corner, like a mongrel. He busied himself counting Spocks, and perhaps for the first time in his life, he was genuinely amused.

He didn't know about that other one, but his Spock could never accept his human half. Raised on Vulcan and looking like a Vulcan, he could logically identify as a Vulcan only, which was a notion that excluded all things human in all their illogic. And it made the agony of random and powerful emotional reactions he kept fighting all the more excruciating – because the emotions were so human.

Spock struggled to the point of self-contempt. He felt, and loathed himself for that, and then loathed himself even more, because loathing was illogical. It was a vicious circle he saw no way out of, up to a certain point. Exactly up to the point when Leonard 'Sawbones' McCoy came into his view.

McCoy the impulsive, McCoy the overreactive. He was so stupefyingly, unbearably human in his speech, actions and behaviors: grumpy, sardonic, skittish, mildly ferocious, a bit lustful, not entirely unsympathetic, and infinitely cynical. What struck Spock most was that this little maggot was at such good terms with his humanness. Spock saw a whole being, a man who could actually shrug off his own unpredictability as if it didn't matter and just savor the moment. Which made doctor McCoy a perfect target for a self-hating half-Vulcan to take his hatred out on. From the moment he embarked, McCoy's life at the I.S.S. Enterprise was turned into hell.

That was how the world worked – the strong took what they wanted, and the weak were left to suffer what they could. The suffering didn't last long, though. When you had to move up in rank by assassinating your superiors, you couldn't be anything but coldly efficient. Which was why Spock's behavior seemed odd at first, to put it mildly: he neither had any interest in taking the doctor's position, nor was he inefficient. When the nightmare was just starting, the doctor brooded on that until his brains squeaked. But then, gradually, he stopped thinking seriously about it, or anything else, for that matter. When your brain is falling apart, gyrus by gyrus, thinking seriously becomes a tricky business.

Whatever little was left of his memory, the first forced mind-meld doctor McCoy would remember for the rest of his life. He'd forgotten when it was, or why – maybe they were arguing, or maybe the doctor just happened to pass by, radiating the all-too-human grouchiness and bile as he did. But he would never forget the 'how' of it. He'd always shudder at that sensation of air being pressed out of his lungs as the Vulcan smashed him, back first, into the wall and pressed his fingers against the psi-spots at the side of his face. Spock's mind penetrated the doctor's and burst it open. Brutally, excruciatingly, it twisted every nerve and bent double every brain circuit. It tore the doctor's conscious self away from his body and stuffed it inside again, fractured, smoldering in dysfunction. It was like rape, except that the Vulcan didn't harm his body in any way – it was his mind he thrust into and ripped apart.

There were other melds afterwards. At first, Spock only did it to relieve his dismay at the human's illogic, but then the pattern was lost, or so it looked to the frenzied doctor. It seemed to start and cease chaotically, short-circuiting every neural connection and slowly driving doctor McCoy insane. There was not much use fighting. The Vulcan was five times stronger than him, and a half-hearted nerve pinch was more than enough to paralyze the human into a degrading wide-eyed semi-consciousness, where he'd sense everything and couldn't so much as jerk his eyelids in response. He stopped fighting and let Spock break him into schizophrenia, day by day. The doctor was seeing things that weren't there and getting blind to those that were. He started to hear voices inside his head and was becoming deaf to the buzz outside his own little conflicted world. He hallucinated at nights and broke into fits of convulsing, screaming hysteria, his small body arched and shaking, tears streaming down his face, after which more mind-fucking followed.

He was a wreck now, drifting from one meld to another, and the ethanol-anesthetized, heavily drugged darkness in between. A walking lump of distorted perception, a scapegoat for whatever it was that troubled Spock. Everyone knew, but no one interfered: it was their business, after all. The doctor did his job, and did it surprisingly well, and he was clearly a mental – which was why his subordinate M'Benga never so much as pointed a scalpel in his direction. He didn't want the trouble, and no one did. Everyone was just watching passively and waiting for doctor McCoy to expire in his own time.

The flurry of reminiscences was interrupted when this sickening universe's Spock, M'Benga, and Chapel entered the brig. Kirk, Scotty, and Uhura sprang up to their feet and went on circling the chamber like big cats in a trap, while the doctor remained still. Leaning back against the wall, he watched quietly, from under the drooping eyelids. Crazy he might be, but he was no fool. Something was going on there, and he'd just keep his ears open – he could manage that much, couldn't he.

Spock observed the doctor's relaxed posture, which was such a stark contrast to how the others were behaving. From the moment he stepped down the transporter platform, that other McCoy appeared much calmer than they were, never resisting arrest, never uttering a word. Spock found the peacefulness odd. But it was still better than having a raging psychopath of a doctor on their hands, now, when an officer's life was at stake. And after all, he was technically the same man, with his nimble hand and quick impromptu thinking – just as the situation required.

Spock called out to the doctor, and he lifted his blue-eyed gaze to meet the Vulcan's, his round face perfectly tranquil.

"There is a situation that leaves us no choice but to ask for your help," Spock began, approaching the force field, "A young female officer is dying of an internal injury, and she requires a complex surgery only you can perform, in your counterpart's absence."

Instantly, doctor McCoy's nerves coiled into a tight rope. He lost his cool for a fraction and let his face twitch, but then, he was too overwhelmed by the suddenness. He looked at that other sissy Spock, at the miserable-looking medics, and couldn't believe his luck.

With a titanic thrust of willpower, he recollected himself. Not yet, not yet. You'll spoil everything. He rose to his feet and walked over to the field, slowly, almost on tiptoe.

"I'm listening," he said, his voice perfectly leveled.

Doctor M'Benga briefed him on the details and asked if he'd ever had a chance to do a thoracotomy back in his universe. McCoy nodded, his heart racing.

"Was it successful?" the subordinate doctor asked, squinting at him.

"Nine out of eleven," McCoy replied, truthfully.

The medics exchanged glances. It sounded credible, it was much better than nothing, and it was quite like the original doctor McCoy, who succeeded with ten out of the eleven people he thoracotomized. He lost patients now and then, for various reasons, but he never sugarcoated his mistakes.

"We cannot force you to operate, doctor," Spock said, "We merely ask you as a professional, and in the hope that you will take the chance to demonstrate your goodwill and thus make your experience here more pleasurable."

Doctor McCoy seemed to consider this for a moment. He then looked at the Vulcan and nodded in agreement.

"Sawbones, back to your place" Kirk snapped, suddenly.

This did not sound like an order, Spock thought, his eyebrow arching. It seemed more like a command, as if to a dog. The other doctor McCoy turned to the Captain.

"There's a woman dyin'. Sir," he added, trying not to grit his teeth as he uttered the word.

"Get your brains together, ding-dong! It's a trap, can't you see?" Kirk stormed towards the force field and searched the faces of the medics, "One minute they're lying there belly-up and wagging their tails, next minute they torture something out of you to use against us."

"You are judging others by yourself, Captain, which is quite unreasonable in our case. I assure you that no harm – " Spock said, making another step towards the field.

"He isn't going anywhere!" Kirk growled.

He grabbed doctor McCoy by the shoulder and shoved him back into the corner. As the doctor hit his head, stumbled and clawed at the wall trying to steady himself, Spock's hand drew a phaser with superhuman speed. The nozzle was pointing exactly between Kirk's eyes. The Captain froze in his place, and so did the others, withering the Vulcan with their hateful eyes when he turned off the field to let the doctor out. After McCoy exited, he turned the field back on and pointed his phaser at the doctor.

"You will be watched, of course," Spock said and motioned for him to move forward.

Doctor McCoy touched his bruised forehead and walked dreamily past the force field where the three inmates fumed with rage. He then stopped, turning his head halfway in the Captain's direction.

"When push comes to shove, I did give the goddamn Hippocrates oath, didn't I," he said, and smiled to himself as he deliberately forgot the 'sir' at the end.


	3. Chapter 3

"Haemothorax on the left, mediastinum widened – why the hell is she still on cyclical? Who's gonna be scraping bits of her from all over the place? 'Cause I'm not volunteerin'."

Spock watched from the neighboring biobed as the doctor quickly changed the resuscitation pattern on the patient and went to pull his gloves on. This other McCoy did appear somewhat confused and unsteady on his legs while he was being escorted to the sickbay. As the doctor's gaze wandered bemusedly, Spock was asking himself if he had by any means deserved his nickname. The original McCoy's appellative was derived from the same word – 'sawbones'. But while 'Bones' sounded somewhat harmless, the full form gave the doctor from the other side of the mirror an air of degradation.

But while Spock watched the other one start the operation, he concluded that the nickname was, by and large, a misnomer. At work, the mirrored reflection and the prototype were one and the same man.

"Scalpel. And rib spreaders, _in situ_."

Doctor McCoy made an incision, and the familiar metallic smell of blood hit his nostrils. Something clicked inside his irreversibly damaged consciousness. Something that was, perhaps, too down-to-earth and unsophisticated for mirror-Spock to even put his finger on. He wasn't sure what it was, but it suddenly sprang to function, just as ever. Now that he was seeing the sight he was so used to – a prostrated body that he just cut open – the knotted ball of torn circuitry inside his brain untangled itself. His thoughts ran in perfect order. His mind was clear.

He pried the woman's naked ribs open, secured them with the retractors, and dug his gloved hands into her chest cavity. There. McCoy's fingers reached the fractured aortic walls and began protoplasting them back together, the delicate sensorimotor activity sharpening his instincts razor-thin. He did it, with the nurse passing the instruments and mopping. Doctor M'Benga was playing it cool but still enchanted at the sight. He did it, not a drop of sweat, not a single slip. He performed flawlessly, although he'd never done it at phaser-point before.

"Bone- and skin-knitter."

The doctor closed the woman's ribs, knitted the bone tissue together with an osteoregenerator, and ran a dermal regeneration device over the cut. He then pulled the blood-stained gloves off and stood there, observing the patient in her sleep. Spock rose from his place and searched the other McCoy's face. There were the subtlest shifts in the facial expression, and how the other McCoy's shoulders drooped, and some other imperceptible changes that removed the illusionary original and materialized the mirrored doctor back into his own self. Fascinating.

Doctor M'Benga shook his hand, sternly but amazedly. Christine touched his shoulder, softly. The danger has passed, everyone was happy, and the girl would probably live to tell how she was operated on by a mirrored man.

"Time to return," Spock noted, after everyone said their thanks.

The tired doctor seemed to shrink in size at the sound of his words. He touched the purpling bruise on his forehead and looked confusedly about. Spock's phaser followed doctor McCoy's trajectory as he walked noiselessly around the ward – like a beaten dog.

"Can we drop in to my, uhh, _his_ quarters on our way?" he blurted suddenly, "Just curious, y'know."

"I understand your unwillingness to return to the company that harasses you, but we are very short of time."

"Ya, sure. Just thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, is all," the doctor said, surveying the sterility he wasn't quite used to.

As they walked through his cabinet on their way to the exit, he slowed again, amused at the cleanness of his counterpart's workplace. Not a bottle in sight, not an empty re-used hypo, not a scrap of rubbish anywhere, nothing. His gaze clouded suddenly, as a thought flowed over him.

"I wonder," he said, softly, "If he also keeps the picture of his poor little daughter up there, in that left drawer."

"Poor little – ?" Christine asked, puzzled, "But Joanna must be in her twenties by now, safe and well at Cerberus school."

The doctor's face went blank. He kept silent for a while, brushing his hand across the tabletop.

"Some lucky bastard of a father he is, then," he said, studying the tabletop intently, " _My_ little girl never made it to the school. Died of leukemia, age seven."

He shot a momentary glance upwards to check the reaction. Was his trick too crude, too obvious? Back at home, he'd get the hell to pay for this bullshit the moment he'd think it – but no, not here. Absurdly enough, his poorly-fabricated lie produced just the response he'd hoped for. Pity. It was there, at the bottom of everyone's eyes, including Spock's. Doctor McCoy almost let out a chuckle but knew better than that.

Spock observed the doctor is his anguish, and sensed compassion churning up from the inside. He geared his inner mechanisms to empower thought over feeling. A deep noiseless breath so that no one noticed. Acknowledge, label, accept, dismiss as immaterial. Analyze. The doctor did perform the operation excellently. Shoving him, a forlorn father, inside the brig and leaving him for the others to bully would be ungrateful. Gratitude was a human concept, and a very important one for the original McCoy, in all his humanness. Perhaps, the other's mood would also improve after he felt his efforts were acknowledged. A relaxed and cooperative mirror-McCoy was preferable, considering that the time (or the very fact) of the original McCoy's return was uncertain.

"We shall visit the doctor's quarters," Spock said, levelly, "I urge you, however, to be as brief as possible."

As they walked along the corridor and into the turbolift, the doctor was doing the talking. He told Spock a little about his daughter, and how he mourned the loss, and how he divorced his wife, alienated, and joined the fleet. Spock listened and observed as he spoke. This McCoy's vowel-drawling was more apparent, which made him sound somewhat uneducated. There was a subtle difference in the complexion color (paler, grayish) and body mass (he was thinner). But otherwise, the mirror-McCoy looked and behaved quite decently. Quite like the original one, in fact.

"What are you, eyeballing me or what?"

"Merely studying," Spock said, still thinking.

The doctor laughed a short laugh.

"Honest as ever, huh. Guess that's how it goes: when the whole universe is mirrored, there's one thing that remains unchanged. Our trust."

They entered the doctor's quarters, and the other McCoy took a good look around. Clean. He opened a drawer just for the show, and found no pictures in it. He then walked over to the cupboard where he'd kept his booze back at the I.S.S. Enterprise, and opened it. The shelves were half-empty. Or half-full, depending on how you saw it.

He picked a bottle of what looked like black rum, poured himself a shot and took a swig. Good stuff. He paced around the room, the shot in his hand, his throat tingling pleasantly. He was about to drift into a flood of remembrance, when he suddenly realized the Vulcan was still there, watching him, stone-faced but impatient. By golly, he'd almost forgotten all about him. That's what mind-melding does to you, all right.

The doctor poured a second shot and offered it to Spock. The Vulcan shook his head.

"If you are finished, we had better go back to the brig. I will proceed with my work so that you and your companions could be safely returned."

Back? Back to the stench, the insults, the mind rapes, the madness? Doctor McCoy didn't think so. His thin lips curved into a sickly smile, visibly, as he slouched in a chair, legs crossed.

"Guess I'm gonna be just as comfy in here, thank you very much."

Spock kept silent for a moment, quite stunned. He had anticipated such a possibility, of course, and yet the treason struck him with its blatancy.

"You are betraying the very trust you said was unchallenged across the universes," he said, coolly, "Your staying here is out of the question. Please do not detain us any further."

McCoy smiled wider, finished the shot, and took the one that was meant for Spock.

"I'm not goin' anywhere. Not now."

"I should not like to apply force, doctor," Spock said, moving forward, "But if you leave me no alternative – "

The Vulcan made another step, and the doctor sprang to his feet. He grabbed the rum bottle by the neck and smashed it against the tabletop. The glass shattered into pieces, spilling the liquor, and leaving doctor McCoy with a sharp bottleneck in his hand. He stabbed the air in Spock's direction.

"I said, I ain't goin' anywhere!" he snarled, dog-like, his teeth bare, "What are you, fuckin' deaf with ears like that?"

Spock sighed and went closer. He could phaser-stun him, but chose not to: the doctor could cut himself on the glass when he fell to the floor. The Vulcan had five times the doctor's strength, and although he would rather not use physical force even on that wicked creature, he was left with no choice. He caught McCoy by the wrist of the hand clutching the bottle fragment.

"Doctor, I urgently recommend that you – "

Something blunt stabbed his thigh, and he gasped. There was the unmistakable hiss of a drug being jet-injected intravenously right through his skin. The numbness diffused through his dilated blood vessels in a second, and his legs gave way. Still clasping the doctor's thin wrist, Spock fell to his knees and collapsed onto his side, pulling the other McCoy after him.

"F... Fascinating," he whispered, gazing wide-eyed at the empty hypospray in the doctor's free hand.

As he was losing his senses, the last thing he saw was the face – the one he knew so well – morphing into a vicious grin of a total stranger.


	4. Chapter 4

When he woke up, he was still lying on the floor, but this time, his wrists were tied together at the front.

Trapped. Anger swelled inside Spock and crashed into him like a tsunami. He purged it, threw it away unaccepted, and let reason overpower. Analyze. He spotted four empty hyposprays scattered on the floor and tried to discern what it was he was drugged with. His mind was clear, he felt the pressure of the deck underneath, but no textures, and he was so weak he could barely move. Perhaps, a neural paralyzer to render him unconscious, and a skeletal muscle relaxant, or rather, a neuromuscular blocker of sorts –

Doctor McCoy's hand grabbed his hair and lifted his head off the floor.

"Wakey-wakey, eggs and bakey," the mirrored doctor chided. He lowered himself beside, a thin blade glistening in his other hand.

"I happen to be an herbivorous being, which is why your rhetoric does not apply, at present," Spock said, struggling to keep his voice composed.

Doctor McCoy laughed a humorless laugh. The Vulcan was obviously trying to win some time to think as he lay there, crouched, on his side, with his hands tied where the doctor could see them. He was happy to oblige, although not for too long.

At last, the doctor thought as he let his gaze wander and savored the Vulcan's helplessness. How many times he was the one to lie like that, back at the I.S.S. Enterprise, in his quarters, and wish he'd never been born – because he knew that soon enough, Spock would come and thrash his mind up. How many times he struggled and got smashed into nonexistence, before he realized that fighting was futile. How much pain he had to heat up in a spoon and jet-inject himself with. How many tears he bled over every next glass of pure ethanol. And then, in this universe, he managed to scrape together what was left of his brain, make a show – and the roles switched all of a sudden, and now he was in charge. Power. There was so much of it, he felt bloated.

"If you intend to use me to release your Captain and companions," Spock said, a fistful of his hair still in the doctor's hand, "You will be disappointed. Mr. Sulu will assume command in my absence, and they will never jeopardize the ship on my behalf."

"Oh, you've always been such a smartass," doctor McCoy said, letting go of his head, so he bumped down, "But just think, why would I want Kirk free? To have the same shit all over again in your universe? No point in that."

"Then, with all due respect, you have only trapped yourself. We are known to have gone to your counterpart's quarters, and we will be located eventually."

This wasn't a threat, rather a statement, but the doctor was unimpressed.

"Let's have it clear, Spock: I know what I'm doin'," he said, stroking the Vulcan's messed hair, absently, "I'm not going back 'cause I won't last long there. And I'm not staying here, either, 'cause your people will get me soon. See? I know I'm a goner. But the point is, I'm not afraid, 'cause I'm taking you with me," he flashed a carnivorous smile, "I've been waitin' long enough."

The doctor's eyes flickered obscurely in the dim light, and the pupils were two tiny black dots in the watery-blue of the irises. His eyes were that of an animal, a demon, a – madman? Spock saw the doctor's face twitch randomly, and had to admit this was most probably the case. His reflexes were hyper-tense, his thoughts disordered, and his plan – clearly suicidal. The Vulcan shoved aside the shock at seeing the exact duplicate of his friend swimming in psychosis. Dismiss. Analyze. Whatever was the cause of the insanity, his plan was that of revenge. Presumably, the other Spock was the target he could not reach, hence the present situation.

"I fail to see the logic in putting the blame of my counterpart on me. I am not even remotely aware of what he might have done to you," Spock began, levelly.

That other Spock's voice vibrated in the doctor's perception, so familiar, so estranged. He gave the Vulcan a funny look.

"You really have no idea, do you," he said, amused.

"I do not," Spock said, contemplating the chances of getting some reason into the doctor and ending this peacefully. The chances were faint, but he decided to try, "As I said, I am a different person. But perhaps, if you informed me, our discussion would become more productive, do you not agree?"

The doctor snorted aloud.

"Discussion, huh? You green-blooded scumbags never discuss. Wanna know what he did? Why don't you just mind-fuck me and see for yourself?"

He grasped Spock's tied hands and pressed the numb fingers against his own jawline and temple, in a mock mind-meld. Spock tried to jerk away but couldn't, and he shielded himself mentally against the touch.

"That's the way you do it, ain't it," the doctor said, his grip tightening.

Spock closed his eyes in disgust, pure and intense. He tore the emotion away and purged it, although it was almost physically painful. Analyze. Forced melding, when applied methodically, was a viable cause of insanity. As it turned out, the abominable practice was the normal way for the mirror universe's Vulcans. And his counterpart – his own self, in a sense – was the one to drive the other doctor McCoy into madness.

"Doctor," Spock said, his eyes still closed, "I acknowledge your resentment, but believe me, I find the practice an utter disgrace. And this is another reason your revenge is pointless," he looked the doctor straight in the eye, "I repeat, I am not him."

McCoy grabbed him by the collar and pulled so close that they almost touched.

"Your DNA, your fingerprints, your eye retina," he whispered in Spock's face, "The way you look, the way you talk, move, think, it's the same. There's only one thing that makes all the difference: circumstances. Circumstances made him the way he is. And he, with his goddamn identity issues, was the circumstance to make me how I am," he broke off the tirade and looked Spock up and down, "Just think, what'd become of you if you two were changed at birth?"

Spock didn't know the circumstances. He knew nothing about the Empire, or that they had to murder their superiors to achieve their rank, or that the peaceful negotiations with the Halkans, here, were about to turn into a bloodbath, there. He could only judge by how the landing party's counterparts behaved, but that was quite enough. The mirror universe's circumstances, whatever they were, magnified and perverted their character into a sick caricature. Jim's pride became his counterpart's arrogance. Mr. Scott's rustic charm was crooked into the other's barbarism. Lt. Uhura's assertiveness morphed into common bitchiness in her reflection.

The moment that other McCoy mentioned identity, Spock knew what would become of his own insecurities, twisted in the mirror. And he understood that the doctor might be right. Under those circumstances, he would probably hate himself enough to disrupt a human's sanity, just to feed his own assorted complexes.

McCoy watched Spock closely, and saw the understanding in his eyes. Now he got it, alright. The doctor hauled him off the floor and pushed him onto the chair with unexpected strength. He then stepped back and observed the Vulcan, twirling the stolen scalpel between his fingers, head cocked to the side. Spock kept silent. The paralyzer was wearing off, he could tell it because he sensed the doctor's cold, painful grip and cringed as his back hit the chair. He was recovering his tactile sensation, but the relaxant was still potent. He could not fight, his movements were too slow, the muscles still in atrophy.

Doctor McCoy was well aware of that. He approached Spock, slowly.

"I'm a doctor, not a telepath," he said, his voice low, "But I think I can give you a pretty clear idea of what it felt like, to me."

Spock tried to speak but the blade was at his neck instantly, its edge sharp and cool against the skin under his left ear.

"You try to do anything stupid and say goodbye to your carotid artery," the doctor said, leaning closer to Spock.

He gripped Spock's jaw, professionally, to force his mouth open. The moment his teeth unclenched, the doctor pressed his lips against Spock's and pushed his tongue inside.

Spock's first instinct was to bite that tongue off, but the scalpel at his carotid reminded him not to. Surely, he had kissed before, but it was never like that with the women he knew. McCoy was deep, penetrating, shameless, as he was recreating the sensation of a forced mind-meld by the means of his body. He wouldn't let go, and Spock practically choked. Acknowledge: rage. The emotion squeezed the blood vessels in his temples, revving his heart up, almost making him growl. Accept. Dismiss.

The mirrored McCoy brushed his lips across Spock's neck and bit his ear. He let go of Spock's face and slid his hand down under his uniform tunic. Spock felt it climb upwards, until it reached his chest and gave his right nipple a painful pinch. Spock lifted his tied hands in an attempt to defend himself, but he was too docile, and the doctor simply slapped them off. Acknowledge: fury. It made his mouth curve into a bare-teethed scowl as doctor McCoy ripped his tunic in two. Accept. The doctor's lips went down Spock's bare chest, and he bit his other nipple and circled his tongue around it. Accept. His fingers traveled down, rested on Spock's knee, crawled slowly higher up along his thigh. Accept. He moved higher, caressingly, almost lovingly. Dismiss. _Dismiss!_

He slid his hand between Spock's legs and stopped there. The Vulcan let out a choked gasp. He was hard, painfully, and he didn't even realize it until the doctor's fingers closed on his erection and gave it a teasing squeeze. Spock shut his eyes tight as the doctor rubbed him, slowly, through the fabric. Acknowledge: hatred. He felt it wrap around him in all its dreadful blackness, and could not find the strength to either accept or purge it anymore. Other emotions flurried, in a legion – shame, disdain, humiliation, indignation, hurt, confusion, despair, and he lost count of them as they overflowed. The other McCoy stuck the scalpel behind his belt, gripped Spock's hair and kissed him, deep and hot. His fingers were light and nimble over Spock's crotch, and the Vulcan suddenly felt his half-atrophied hip muscles twitch in response. Acknowledge... acknowledge what?

He felt the mirrored McCoy undo the button and slide his hand inside his uniform pants. The Vulcan's back arched, hips jolted forward, every numb muscle suddenly sprang alive and contracted. Was it panic that electrified his body? Or was it the mere physical sensation of the other man's touch on his naked flesh? He couldn't distinguish between the bodily and the mental as McCoy's hand moved up and down along the length of him, tightened and loosened the grip. Spock threw his head back and tried to think, to distract himself somehow, but the thoughts took the wrong course. He imagined his friends on the other side of the mirror, and what the other Spock could do to his Jim, his Scott, his Uhura. His McCoy. Suddenly, the image of Bones McCoy floated into view, smirking wolf-like. Suddenly, it was the original doctor that dug his teeth into Spock's neck and moved his hand faster, tantalizingly. The thought horrified him, and he tried to snap out of it, and failed.

He couldn't distance himself, couldn't analyze, couldn't label what he felt. And just like the mirrored Spock, he could not accept what was happening.

He lost control over his body, and now his mind was coming undone before his eyes. Spock gazed up at his tormentor, wild-eyed, panting, struggling for every breath. Ruined. The uncontrollability shook the immaculate, fine-tuned mechanism of his brain, and was ripping the circuits apart, sadistically, one by one. Spock tried to override, stab back, destroy, but McCoy squeezed him harder, and he trembled bodily, as if he was electrocuted.

"No one allowed you to come, you lizard," the words lashed through his compromised consciousness, and it stopped abruptly, making Spock groan and bury his head in hands.

The doctor stepped back and looked at the Vulcan. He sat there, lolling back and forth, his tunic ripped open, teeth marks and kiss marks all over his neck. Knees pressed shakily together. Doctor McCoy grabbed him and threw onto the bed, face-up. Spock crunched abdominally, trying to shield himself as the doctor climbed after him and forced his thighs apart.

"Lemme see your face," the doctor said and drew the scalpel. He wouldn't bother with dress-undressing, he'd just cut and rip the clothes where needed and finish him. And then, maybe, nick his throat before the pancuronium solution metabolized completely.

The Vulcan was still covering his head.

"I said, hands off your mugshot, you green-assed imbecile," the doctor snapped.

He bent over to get hold of his wrists, forced them away, and froze.

A tear rolled out of the corner of Spock's eye and fell onto the bed covers.

He had cried before when mind-melded, or drugged, or when a more powerful telepathic mind had him in its power, but those tears weren't his. This one was, and this one was the bitterest. Just how fast has the logic evaporated, leaving him alone with that hateful, insecure humanness. Just how little it took to drive him out of control, leaving nothing of his wholeness and integrity. He was losing himself, and couldn't hold it back anymore.

Doctor McCoy let go off him and sat on the edge of the bed. He searched Spock's face, but the Vulcan cried no more. He just lay there quietly, legs spread, hardness bursting his uniform pants from the inside, and awaited his own destruction. The doctor looked at him, and didn't do anything.

Something ticked inside the broken mechanism that was Leonard 'Sawbones' McCoy. Deep down his disrupted psyche, where everything was wretched and terribly wrong, something suddenly put itself right. He looked at this other Spock, the same man as his own executioner, and knew he couldn't do it. He would not.

"Bridge to Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock, acknowledge."

The doctor stood up and walked to the other McCoy's cupboard. He took a bottle of what looked like absinthe, uncorked it and took a long swig.

"Bridge to Mr. Spock, come in please."

Doctor McCoy paced around the room, bits of shattered glass squeaking underfoot. That other one was at his full power, and he cracked already, and yet the doctor couldn't make himself break the Vulcan altogether – he didn't even want to. Emptiness spilled all over him, like sawdust, and he embraced it. He was left unavenged, and somehow, it felt right.

"Mr. Spock, please acknowledge. Mr. Spock, where are you?"

The doctor walked over to the intercom panel and jabbed his scalpel into it, repeatedly. The blasted thing spat out some sparks and went quiet. In the quietness, he heard the bed creak as the Vulcan was raising unsteadily to his feet.

Spock made a step, and then another one. He thrust and wrenched his wrists, and tore the cord that tied them. Breathing heavily, he approached the mirror-McCoy, grabbed him by the throat and raised his other clenched hand for a strike. Kill. Smash that face into the skull. Obliterate. Blunt fury was pulsating uncontrollably in Spock's veins, and now that the drugs wore off, it was _his_ dismembered consciousness, _his_ exposed humanness that sought revenge. Through the fog of bloodthirst, he saw the doctor smile faintly. He didn't even try to defend himself.

Salt still stinging under his eyelids, Spock looked at the doctor and couldn't believe what he saw. The canine bare-teethed grinning was gone, the round face was perfectly sane, if only a little weary, stained with hurt and – unmistakably – regret. It was the look that the original doctor had, sometimes, when a patient was lost and he could do nothing about it, but blamed himself all the same. This time, it was no illusion, Spock knew. Somewhere inside, this lunatic was still Leonard H. McCoy. The same man across the two realities. The man whom no circumstances could break.

This sobered him. Spock loosened his grip on the doctor's neck, hesitated for a moment, and then pinched the sinus at its base. McCoy's eyes widened, his whole body jerked into stiffness and then relaxed. Spock caught him as he started to collapse and carried over to the bed, unconscious. He then took off the ripped clothing, shuffled through the other doctor's drawers, and got dressed in one of his tunics. It was too small, but it was better than nothing.

There were people bustling in the corridors, calling out for Spock. He lifted the mirrored McCoy's limp body off the bed, unlocked the doors, stepped outside, and set off to carry him to the brig. He didn't analyze his feelings. He shoved aside the horrible mess that was piling up inside of him, for later consideration.


	5. Chapter 5

"Jim, I think I liked him with a beard better. It gave 'im character," doctor McCoy said, jokingly.

The original doctor was at his usual place, to the left of the Captain's chair on the bridge. Spock had done his part, and the four of them were transposed safely, materializing at the U.S.S. Enterprise's transporter chamber at the last moment. They seemed unharmed, and all was well.

"I always thought Spock was a bit of a pirate at heart," Jim said, a relieved smile in his eyes.

"Indeed, gentlemen," Spock returned, clasping his hands behind his back, "May I point out that I had an opportunity to observe your counterparts here... quite closely."

More closely than he would have liked, Spock thought.

"They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilized, treacherous," he went on, "In every way, splendid examples of Homo Sapiens. The very flower of humanity. I found them – quite refreshing."

Doctor McCoy was sure they'd been insulted, just as usual: somehow the Vulcan always managed to effectively harass people without using a word of profanity. Yet, the doctor saw something in that carefully blank face – he wasn't sure what exactly – that struck him as... not right. He said "gentlemen", but he only addressed Jim as he spoke.

Later, he found Spock in one of the recreation rooms. The Vulcan sat alone with his back to the wall in the far corner, tuning his harp. The strings were singing softly under his fingers as he pulled them, turned the tune-keys and cocked his head to the sound. He raised his eyes as the doctor approached.

"May I – ?"

Spock nodded, and doctor McCoy took a seat near him. There was a ball of crumpled blue fabric in his hands. It didn't take Spock a second look to recognize his own ripped tunic.

They kept silent for quite a while, not looking at each other. Doctor McCoy's fingers picked at the torn fabric, absently. Back at his quarters, there was shattered glass all over the place, and the used hyposprays scattered on the floor, and a scalpel sticking out of the intercom panel.

"You didn't really mean it, did you," the doctor said at last, quietly, "About the splendor of humanity, and flowers, an' all."

"I mean everything I say," Spock replied.

He twisted a key and probed a string, and it rang on re bemol. He turned the peg slowly, and the note became a half-tone higher.

"Well, ya, surely, they are vicious. But then, they merely had to adjust to the environment they live in, otherwise they wouldn't survive in there," the doctor said, levelly, "That's how natural selection works. You only survive if you can fit into the circumstances."

One of the strings twanged sharply and broke in two. Spock took a deep breath and removed the bits. More silence followed, hurtful, traumatized.

When the mirrored counterparts were led to the transporter room, Sawbones McCoy was the only one to shrug off the guard's grip and walk by himself. He did not rave or shout like the others. Wistful, almost dormant, he stepped up the platform – an _agnus dei_ mounting the site of his own crucifixion, Spock thought as he watched. Sawbones gave the Vulcan a long look over the shoulder, and the next moment he was gone. The look lingered. It stood up before Spock's eyes while the mirrored counterparts were being replaced by the original landing party. And, for a fraction, it made Spock unsure which of the McCoys stepped down the platform afterwards. Of course, he knew instantly that his doctor was back, simply because this one looked healthier. But still.

"Spock, I – "

Bones McCoy felt his heart clench when he saw Spock's lips tighten at the sound of his voice.

"I don't know what the other one did. And I won't ask you unless you wanna share sometime," he broke off, his voice suddenly coarse, "I had hell of a time there myself, you know."

Spock glanced at him, and he smiled crookedly. The doctor's left wrist was bruised where the other Spock gripped it. And his mind was still banged up and bleeding from the forced meld. He clutched Spock's tunic and wondered if he could purge this horrible remembrance like the Vulcans did.

"The point is, the other Spock realizes the carnage he lives in, and he wants to change it. And yes, he did let us go, after all. It looks like – " he trailed off momentarily, "Who was it that said every living being was essentially good? Voltaire? Rousseau?"

Yes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Descartes, Kant, and many other Earth thinkers to foster this idea. That however twisted the circumstances were, there was a spark of good in every sentient creature. Spock saw it glisten in the mirrored McCoy's eyes as he was beaming away. And, as it turned out, Bones McCoy saw it sparkle in the other Spock at some point.

Their grouchy friendship, here, was perverted into harassment and hatred, there. But now the mirrored Spock and McCoy both had a universe to fix and some wounds to patch. Spock calculated the proximities and concluded that maybe they'd come to terms with each other while they were about it.

"It would seem that the theory has gotten a proof, doctor. As represented by my counterpart – and yours."

He turned another tuning key and ran his fingers over the strings in a re-minor chord. Doctor McCoy listened pensively as he played a low-pitched, dusky moderato. It sang of sorrow and regret, and the hideous, unbearable circumstantiality. But somehow, although one of the strings was broken, it vibrated in perfect harmony.

"I wonder what they're up to, the two of them, now," McCoy said under his breath, as if to himself.

"So do I, doctor," Spock replied.

And the strings strummed on.


End file.
